MR. TOOGOOD AT "THE DRAGON OF WANTLY."
In accordance with his arrangement with Mr. Walker, Mr. Toogood went
over to Barchester early in the morning and put himself up at "The
Dragon of Wantly." He now knew the following facts: that Mr. Soames,
when he lost his cheque, had had with him one of the servants from
that inn,--that the man who had been with Mr. Soames had gone to New
Zealand,--that the cheque had found its way into the hands of Mrs.
Arabin, and that Mrs. Arabin was the owner of the inn in question.
So much he believed to be within his knowledge, and if his knowledge
should prove to be correct, his work would be done as far as Mr.
Crawley was concerned. If Mr. Crawley had not stolen the cheque, and
if that could be proved, it would be a question of no great moment to
Mr. Toogood who had stolen it. But he was a sportsman in his own line
who liked to account for his own fox. As he was down at Barchester,
he thought that he might as well learn how the cheque had got into
Mrs. Arabin's hands. No doubt that for her own personal possession of
it she would be able to account on her return. Probably such account
would be given in her first letter home. But it might be well that
he should be prepared with any small circumstantial details which he
might be able to pick up at the inn.
He reached Barchester before breakfast, and in ordering his tea and
toast, reminded the old waiter with the dirty towel of his former
acquaintance with him. "I remember you, sir," said the old waiter.
"I remember you very well. You was asking questions about the cheque
which Mr. Soames lost afore Christmas." Mr. Toogood certainly had
asked one question on the subject. He had inquired whether a certain
man who had gone to New Zealand had been the post-boy who accompanied
Mr. Soames when the cheque was lost; and the waiter had professed to
know nothing about Mr. Soames or the cheque. He now perceived at once
that the gist of the question had remained on the old man's mind, and
that he was recognized as being in some way connected with the lost
money.
"Did I? Ah, yes; I think I did. And I think you told me that he was
the man?"
"No, sir; I never told you that."
"Then you told me that he wasn't."
"Nor I didn't tell you that neither," said the waiter angrily.
"Then what the devil did you tell me?" To this further question the
waiter sulkily declined to give any answer, and soon afterwards left
the room. Toogood, as soon as he had done his breakfast, rang the
bell, and the same man appeared. "Will you tell Mr. Stringer that I
should be glad to see him if he's disengaged," said Mr. Toogood. "I
know he's bad with the gout, and therefore if he'll allow me, I'll go
to him instead of his coming to me." Mr. Stringer was the landlord
of the inn. The waiter hesitated a moment, and then declared that
to the best of his belief his master was not down. He would go and
see. Toogood, however, would not wait for that; but rising quickly
and passing the waiter, crossed the hall from the coffee-room, and
entered what was called the bar. The bar was a small room connected
with the hall by a large open window, at which orders for rooms were
given and cash was paid, and glasses of beer were consumed,--and a
good deal of miscellaneous conversation was carried on. The barmaid
was here at the window, and there was also, in a corner of the room,
a man at a desk with a red nose. Toogood knew that the man at the
desk with the red nose was Mr. Stringer's clerk. So much he had
learned in his former rummaging about the inn. And he also remembered
at this moment that he had observed the man with the red nose
standing under a narrow archway in the close as he was coming out of
the deanery, on the occasion of his visit to Mr. Harding. It had not
occurred to him then that the man with the red nose was watching him,
but it did occur to him now that the man with the red nose had been
there, under the arch, with the express purpose of watching him on
that occasion. Mr. Toogood passed quickly through the bar into an
inner parlour, in which was sitting Mr. Stringer, the landlord,
propped among his cushions. Toogood, as he had entered the hotel, had
seen Mr. Stringer so placed, through the two doors, which at that
moment had both happened to be open. He knew therefore that his old
friend the waiter had not been quite true to him in suggesting that
his master was not as yet down. As Toogood cast a glance of his eye
on the man with the red nose, he told himself the old story of the
apparition under the archway.
"Mr. Stringer," said Mr. Toogood to the landlord, "I hope I'm not
intruding."
"O dear, no, sir," said the forlorn man. "Nobody ever intrudes coming
in here. I'm always happy to see gentlemen,--only, mostly, I'm so bad
with the gout."
"Have you got a sharp touch of it just now, Mr. Stringer?"
"Not just to-day, sir. I've been a little easier since Saturday. The
worst of this burst is over. But Lord bless you, sir, it don't leave
me,--not for a fortnight at a time, now; it don't. And it ain't what
I drink, nor it ain't what I eat."
"Constitutional, I suppose?" said Toogood.
"Look here, sir;" and Mr. Stringer shewed his visitor the chalk
stones in all his knuckles. "They say I'm all a mass of chalk. I
sometimes think they'll break me up to mark the scores behind my own
door with." And Mr. Stringer laughed at his own wit.
Mr. Toogood laughed too. He laughed loud and cheerily. And then he
asked a sudden question, keeping his eye as he did so upon a little
square open window, which communicated between the landlord's private
room and the bar. Through this small aperture he could see as he
stood a portion of the hat worn by the man with the red nose. Since
he had been in the room with the landlord, the man with the red nose
had moved his head twice, on each occasion drawing himself closer
into his corner; but Mr. Toogood, by moving also, had still contrived
to keep a morsel of the hat in sight. He laughed cheerily at the
landlord's joke, and then he asked a sudden question,--looking well
at the morsel of the hat as he did so. "Mr. Stringer," said he,
"how do you pay your rent, and to whom do you pay it?" There was
immediately a jerk in the hat, and then it disappeared. Toogood,
stepping to the open door, saw that the red-nosed clerk had taken his
hat off and was very busy at his accounts.
"How do I pay my rent?" said Mr. Stringer, the landlord. "Well, sir,
since this cursed gout has been so bad, it's hard enough to pay it at
all sometimes. You ain't sent here to look for it, sir, are you?"
"Not I," said Toogood. "It was only a chance question." He felt
that he had nothing more to do with Mr. Stringer, the landlord. Mr.
Stringer, the landlord, knew nothing about Mr. Soames's cheque.
"What's the name of your clerk?" said he.
"The name of my clerk?" said Mr. Stringer. "Why do you want to know
the name of my clerk?"
"Does he ever pay your rent for you?"
"Well, yes; he does, at times. He pays it into the bank for the
lady as owns the house. Is there any reason for your asking these
questions, sir? It isn't usual, you know, for a stranger, sir."
Toogood during the whole of this time was standing with his eye
upon the red-nosed man, and the red-nosed man could not move. The
red-nosed man heard all the questions and the landlord's answers, and
could not even pretend that he did not hear them. "I am my cousin's
clerk," said he, putting on his hat, and coming up to Mr. Toogood
with a swagger. "My name is Dan Stringer, and I'm Mr. John Stringer's
cousin. I've lived with Mr. John Stringer for twelve year and more,
and I'm a'most as well known in Barchester as himself. Have you
anything to say to me, sir?"
"Well, yes; I have," said Toogood.
"I believe you're one of them attorneys from London?" said Mr. Dan
Stringer.
"That's true. I am an attorney from London."
"I hope there's nothing wrong?" said the gouty man, trying to get off
his chair, but not succeeding. "If there is anything wronger than
usual, Dan, do tell me. Is there anything wrong, sir?" and the
landlord appealed piteously to Mr. Toogood.
"Never you mind, John," said Dan. "You keep yourself quiet, and don't
answer none of his questions. He's one of them low sort, he is. I
know him. I knowed him for what he is directly I saw him. Ferreting
about,--that's his game; to see if there's anything to be got."
"But what is he ferreting here for?" said Mr. John Stringer.
"I'm ferreting for Mr. Soames's cheque for twenty pounds," said Mr.
Toogood.
"That's the cheque that the parson stole," said Dan Stringer. "He's
to be tried for it at the 'sizes."
"You've heard about Mr. Soames and his cheque, and about Mr. Crawley,
I daresay?" said Toogood.
"I've heard a deal about them," said the landlord.
"And so, I daresay, have you?" said Toogood, turning to Dan Stringer.
But Dan Stringer did not seem inclined to carry on the conversation
any further. When he was hardly pressed, he declared that he just had
heard that there was some parson in trouble about a sum of money; but
that he knew no more about it than that. He didn't know whether it
was a cheque or a note that the parson had taken, and had never been
sufficiently interested in the matter to make any inquiry.
"But you've just said that Mr. Soames's cheque was the cheque the
parson stole," said the astonished landlord, turning with open eyes
upon his cousin.
"You be blowed," said Dan Stringer, the clerk, to Mr. John Stringer,
the landlord; and then walked out of the room back to the bar.
"I understand nothing about it,--nothing at all," said the gouty man.
"I understand pretty nearly all about it," said Mr. Toogood,
following the red-nosed clerk. There was no necessity that he should
trouble the landlord any further. He left the room, and went through
the bar, and as he passed out along the hall, he found Dan Stringer
with his hat on talking to the waiter. The waiter immediately pulled
himself up, and adjusted his dirty napkin under his arm, after the
fashion of waiters, and showed that he intended to be civil to the
customers of the house. But he of the red nose cocked his hat, and
looked with insolence at Mr. Toogood, and defied him. "There's
nothing I do hate so much as them low-bred Old Bailey attorneys,"
said Mr. Dan Stringer to the waiter, in a voice intended to reach Mr.
Toogood's ears. Then Mr. Toogood told himself that Dan Stringer was
not the thief himself, and that it might be very difficult to prove
that Dan had even been the receiver of stolen goods. He had, however,
no doubt in his own mind but that such was the case.
He first went to the police office, and there explained his business.
Nobody at the police office pretended to forget Mr. Soames's cheque,
or Mr. Crawley's position. The constable went so far as to swear that
there wasn't a man, woman, or child in all Barchester who was not
talking of Mr. Crawley at that very moment. Then Mr. Toogood went
with the constable to the private house of the mayor, and had a
little conversation with the mayor. "Not guilty!" said the mayor,
with incredulity, when he first heard the news about Crawley. But
when he heard Mr. Toogood's story, or as much of it as it was
necessary that he should hear, he yielded reluctantly. "Dear, dear!"
he said. "I'd have bet anything 'twas he who stole it." And after
that the mayor was quite sad. Only let us think what a comfortable
excitement it would create throughout England if it was surmised that
an archbishop had forged a deed; and how much England would lose when
it was discovered that the archbishop was innocent! As the archbishop
and his forgery would be to England, so was Mr. Crawley and the
cheque for twenty pounds to Barchester and its mayor. Nevertheless,
the mayor promised his assistance to Mr. Toogood.
Mr. Toogood, still neglecting his red-nosed friend, went next to the
deanery, hoping that he might again see Mr. Harding. Mr. Harding
was, he was told, too ill to be seen. Mr. Harding, Mrs. Baxter said,
could never be seen now by strangers, nor yet by friends, unless they
were very old friends. "There's been a deal of change since you were
here last, sir. I remember your coming, sir. You were talking to Mr.
Harding about the poor clergyman as is to be tried." He did not stop
to tell Mrs. Baxter the whole story of Mr. Crawley's innocence; but
having learned that a message had been received to say that Mrs.
Arabin would be home on the next Tuesday,--this being Friday,--he
took his leave of Mrs. Baxter. His next visit was to Mr. Soames, who
lived three miles out in the country.
He found it very difficult to convince Mr. Soames. Mr. Soames was
more staunch in his belief of Mr. Crawley's guilt than any one whom
Toogood had yet encountered. "I never took the cheque out of his
house," said Mr. Soames. "But you have not stated that on oath," said
Mr. Toogood. "No," rejoined the other; "and I never will. I can't
swear to it; but yet I'm sure of it." He acknowledged that he had
been driven by a man named Scuttle, and that Scuttle might have
picked up the cheque, if it had been dropped in the gig. But the
cheque had not been dropped in the gig. The cheque had been dropped
in Mr. Crawley's house. "Why did he say then that I paid it to him?"
said Mr. Soames, when Mr. Toogood spoke confidently of Crawley's
innocence. "Ah, why indeed?" answered Toogood. "If he had not been
fool enough to do that, we should have been saved all this trouble.
All the same, he did not steal your money, Mr. Soames; and Jem
Scuttle did steal it. Unfortunately, Jem Scuttle is in New Zealand by
this time." "Of course, it is possible," said Mr. Soames, as he bowed
Mr. Toogood out. Mr. Soames did not like Mr. Toogood.
That evening a gentleman with a red nose asked at the Barchester
station for a second-class ticket for London by the up night-mail
train. He was well known at the station, and the station-master made
some little inquiry. "All the way to London to-night, Mr. Stringer?"
he said.
"Yes,--all the way," said the red-nosed man, sulkily.
"I don't think you'd better go to London to-night, Mr. Stringer,"
said a tall man, stepping out of the door of the booking-office. "I
think you'd better come back with me to Barchester. I do indeed."
There was some little argument on the occasion; but the stranger, who
was a detective policeman, carried his point, and Mr. Dan Stringer
did return to Barchester.